Yet another month has been and gone and what a month it has been on the indie scene. An impressive number of great indies launched on Switch throughout April and, as such, it's time to boot up the old Nintendo Life eShop Selects machine!

These awards aim to celebrate the best of Nintendo's digital store, giving some love and attention to the games that could so easily be missed in the Switch's ever-growing library.

So, let's get started! Here are the best Switch eShop games of April 2019!

Honourable Mentions:

While these titles didn't quite make our top three this month, they're still certainly worth checking out.

Taking third place this month is Katana ZERO. We awarded the game a mighty 9/10 in our review, praising the '80s inspired action title for its "tough, hair-raising action sequences, gripping narrative, and impeccable sense of style". An all killer, no filler experience on Switch, we'd recommend you go ahead and download this one immediately.

Narrowly edging its way to second place this month is SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech, a brand new take on Image & Form's fan-favourite SteamWorld series. We gave this one an 8/10 in our review, saying that while it doesn't quite live up to the lofty heights of SteamWorld Dig 2, the presentation is slick, the dialogue’s witty and the gameplay is wonderfully addictive. If you want more of SteamWorld, this is absolutely worth your time.

Taking top spot, though, and sitting proudly as our favourite eShop game of April, is Cuphead. In all honesty, we never expected to see this one arrive on Switch, but here we are with it firmly downloaded onto our consoles and we couldn't be more pleased. Another 9/10 whopper, we said this one is "the same visually jaw-dropping, aurally delightful, knuckle-whiteningly difficult game" that first arrived on Xbox. A must-have.

What was your favourite eShop game last month? (184 votes)

Cuphead

41%

SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech

12%

Katana ZERO

11%

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

5%

AngerForce: Reloaded

1%

Picross S3

2%

SEGA AGES Virtua Racing

4%

Cytus α

1%

BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL!

4%

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions

0%

Reigns: Game of Thrones

0%

Out There: Ω The Alliance

0%

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

10%

Hob: The Definitive Edition

4%

Mechstermination Force

2%

Something else (comment below)

How we decide our eShop Selects top three: As we reach the end of every month, the Nintendo Life staff vote on their favourite titles from a list of games selected by the editorial team. To qualify for this list, these games must have been released primarily as a digital Nintendo Switch eShop title in that particular month, and must have been reviewed on Nintendo Life; we select the qualifying games based on their review scores.

Staff are then asked to vote for three games that they think deserve to sit right at the very top of that list; first choice gets 3 points, second choice gets 2 points, and third choice gets 1 point. These votes are then tallied to create a top three list, with the overall winner taking that month's top prize.

Ryan can list the first 151 Pokémon all in order off by heart – a feat he calls his ‘party trick’ despite being such an introvert that he’d never be found anywhere near a party. He’d much rather just have a night in with Mario Kart and a pizza, and we can’t say we blame him.

Cuphead is a must have indeed..but firmly holding off on the prospect of double dipping until I know if and when the physical version will be released with the aforementioned extra goodies inside the box. Likely an artbook of some sort, but still, that'd be worth waiting for in my eyes. Fingers crossed.

There’s been so many eshop games released the past month that I want but I can’t keep up😅 Eventually I’ll pick up Hellblade, Cuphead, Katana Zero, Boxboy, and Hob. The new Steamworld game looks nice too but I’m hesitant on it because I’ve never tried a card type game.

Definitely SteamWorld Quest for me, such an excellent game. Katana ZERO would be second and Cuphead after that. Ace Attorney Trilogy is 10/10 and the best of the bunch but I don't consider it an eShop game as I have the physical release (and I haven't actually played it on the Switch). I haven't played Hellblade yet, trying to hold off until it's on sale.

I'll pass since I haven't bought or played Cuphead yet, and my real top fave of the month - Nelke, potentially tied with FFXII but I haven't started the latter just yet either - probably wouldn't qualify as a retail title. A harder difference to keep track of when you buy everything on eShop in the first place.